


Flowers for Agony

by speccygeekgrrl



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Birthday Presents, Embarrassment, Gen, Kinga is so mean, Second-Hand Embarrassment, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 09:50:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10851501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/pseuds/speccygeekgrrl
Summary: Max tries to do something nice. Jonah has a bad feeling about this. The bots have no chill.





	Flowers for Agony

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is probably the most canon-congruent thing I've written yet. Poor Max.

"I want to place an order from you."

"Uh... okay?" Jonah leaned against the table, looking curious. Getting a call from Max without Kinga present was a rare event, but it usually didn't end well for Max. "What exactly do you want to order?"

"Can you make flowers in your fab lab? Print them or something?"

"Probably could whip something up for you. What's the occasion?" Max looked over his shoulders, but there was just one sole Skeleton Crew walking on the other side of the room. He still leaned closer to the camera and lowered his voice.

"Kinga's birthday is next week and... I just wanted to get her something nice." 

"You know it's not going to change her mind about you," Jonah said. "She's pretty brutal about shutting you down." He was honestly embarrassed on Max's behalf, as many of those shut-downs as he'd witnessed, but Max was either too dumb to know when to quit or too completely lovelorn to give it up.

"Yeah, I know. But she still deserves to get something for her birthday, and no one else is going to get her anything." Max shrugged. "It might cheer her up. Anyways, her favorite flowers are pink roses. If you could make some... a bouquet would be nice if you can manage it."

"I'll see what I can do. Next week?"

"Well, six days."

"Okay."

"And... don't let her know about it?"

"Sorta took that as a given." Max nodded and cut the connection, and Jonah shook his head and headed for his fab lab to start brainstorming.

He didn't want anything to do with... whatever the hell was going on between the two of them. Frankly, Kinga was terrifying, not because she was evil but because she was so bad at being evil but still so mean-spirited. Max actually reminded Jonah of another Gizmonic employee, good-natured and hopelessly in love with the wrong person. He'd felt sorry for both of them. 

But a project was a project, and it kept him busy for a few hours that day and a few more the day after that. Actually, by the time Jonah was done messing around with flowers, he'd made several dozen of them in different types, some 3D-printed and some fabric and some papercraft, roses and lilies and a few tulips for flavor. He put together a dozen of the nicest and put them out of reach of the bots, and the rest of the hoard got added to their ever-growing pile of props.

The day before the next experiment-- which fell on Kinga's birthday-- Max snuck another moment of solo screen time to tell Jonah to leave the flowers in the Backjack after the opening sequence. 

"I don't think this is going to work out like you want it to," Jonah told Max, and Max sighed.

"Can you not think you know what I want to happen? What I want isn't what everyone thinks I want, okay? Just... thank you for making them and butt out about what they're for." Jonah shrugged and lifted his hands. "Okay. Thanks. Thank you."

The morning of the experiment, Jonah kept the bouquet hidden behind his back as he was sucked off the Satellite of Love for the opening sequence of the show, and he winked at Max as he walked through Moon 13 on his way to be shot back up. Okay. Fine. He did his part. That was all he had to do.

When he got back to the Satellite of Love, Jonah looked around in mild dismay. He'd barely been gone two minutes, but the bots had managed to put almost all the remaining flowers up as decorations except for a small bouquet in Tom's hand and a flower crown threaded through Crow's netting. "Hey guys... what's going on?" he asked, glancing uncomfortably at the screen where the Mads watched them. Kinga looked bemused. Max looked uncomfortable until the bots started talking, and then he looked like he wanted to die.

"Oh, Crow! I can't hide it any more. I'm madly in love with you!"

"Ew," Crow said, turning away. "As if."

"These flowers are a symbol of my love! Look, the roses mean I adore you. Won't you look at me?" Crow looked back over his shoulder and rolled his eyes exaggeratedly.

"Servo, get real. You don't deserve my golden radiance. I couldn't possibly love a bot like you. You're way too... round."

"Oh, please give me a chance! You don't know what you could be missing out on. I'd treat you like a prince!" Max was almost as red as Tom, and the hand that had been holding the bouquet behind his back dropped to his side. Kinga crossed her arms.

"Hello? Hate to break up your pathetic little soap opera, but it's invention exchange time, Heston. Show me something more interesting than a mechanical heart breaking."

"How about a human heart breaking?" Crow said wickedly. Jonah reached over and held his beak shut.

"Yeah, of course! This week I've got the Home Life Random Action Generator. See, each of the facets is a chore or a hobby, so when you're bored or have free time you just roll it and--" Jonah rolled the oversized d12 and picked it up to read the face. "Oh, I should read for half an hour. Great, I'm just gonna go do that--"

"Ah! No. Nice try. And... why the hell would anyone want that?"

"Gamify your life. It's a big trend now."

"Right. Well, we've got a portable custom 'world's best' mug-maker..." She glanced at Max. "Uh, Max? Where is it?"

"It... uh..." He stammered for a moment, then sighed, shoulders slumping, and held out the bouquet in his hand. "Here. Happy birthday."

She stared at him for a moment, absolutely blankly. She reached out to take the flowers, brought them close to her face and studied them still with no expression... and then she reached out and beat him over the head with them.

" _Why_ would you bring up my birthday when you _know_ I hate it and _where_ did you get these _ugly_ flowers?" Every emphasized word brought another smack of the wood and plastic bouquet, and every smack got another dismayed yelp from Max. "I don't want your stupid flowers, Max! Go get the invention exchange! Now!" He ran off screen with his face in his hands. Kinga dropped the bouquet with a look of disgust and kicked it off the other side of the screen. "Ugh. So inefficient. But the show must go on." 

Jonah and the bots just stood there in awkward silence. The show didn't go on. Max never came back with the invention. After a few minutes, Kinga sighed heavily. "Fine. Whatever. Your movie today is some Eurotrash from the 80s. Enter the nightmare-fueled world of Zombie Lake." She didn't sound enthusiastic about it. Jonah saw her mouth _send them the movie, Kinga_ as she leaned over to press the button to do it.

"Uh... we've got movie sign!" Jonah said, relieved to go into the theater for the first time. The bots both snickered as they moved into the theater, proud of themselves, but Jonah just felt acutely embarrassed for Max's sake. He might be dumb and mildly evil, but no one deserved to be treated like that.


End file.
